Bishop Gore's Challenge to Criticism; a reply to the Bishop of Oxford's open letter on the basis of Anglican fellowship

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BISHOP GORE'S
CHALLENGE TO CRITICISM

A REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF OXFORD'S

OPEN LETTER ON THE BASIS OF

ANGLICAN FELLOWSHIP

BY

W. SANDAY, D.D., F.B.A.

LADY MARGARET PROFESSOR AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

FOURTH AVENUE & SOrn STREET, NEW YORK

BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1914

Price Sixpence net

BISHOP GORE'S
CHALLENGE TO CRITICISM

A REPLY TO THE BISHOP OF OXFORD'S

OPEN LETTER ON THE BASIS OF

ANGLICAN FELLOWSHIP

BY

W. SANDAY, D.D., F.B.A.

LADT MARGARET PROFESSOR AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

1914

PREFATORY NOTE

THERE are two things that I greatly regret about this
pamphlet. It has to serve a double purpose. A situation
had suddenly arisen in the Church which acutely touched
myself, and I felt it impossible to keep silence. A word
seemed demanded from me on the public issue ; but at
the same time I had to clear my conscience by explaining
frankly where I stood in relation to that issue. From
my published books I might easily be thought to hold
a position somewhat different from that which I actually
hold at the present time. It is a development rather
than a change ; and I had made arrangements for
explaining the nature of the development. But these
arrangements have had to be anticipated. I felt that
I must come out into the open at once. But that involved
the unfortunate consequence that I had to make my
statement under stress of controversy, and that I had to
make it in a way that must seem abrupt and unprepared.
There is more detailed work than appears behind this
pamphlet ; and I shall doubtless have to treat the
subject more at length. Only the essential points can be
set down here.

Events have moved rather too fast for me. When
I began this pamphlet I did not realize that the decision
would be upon us quite so soon. I wrote to deprecate
the declaration asked for by Dr. Gore ; and while these
pages have been passing through the press the declaration
has practically been made, in the answer of the Upper
House of Convocation to certain memorials presented
to it. It seemed only right and respectful to wait for the
publication of the Bishops' resolutions and of the full

4 Prefatory Note

debate in which they were discussed. In reference to
these I may perhaps be allowed to say that I recognize
the fact that, if the Bishops were to speak, it was not to
be expected that they should speak otherwise than they
have done ; and I would express my appreciation of the
anxious care that; was shown both in the resolutions
and in many of the speeches — very notably in the
Primate's — not to interfere with the freedom of genuine
study. There is a certain awkwardness in writing about
an issue that is past as though it were still future.; but
I am afraid that in this respect I must leave the pamphlet
as it was written.

W. S.
CHRIST CHURCH,

May 9, 1914.

BISHOP GORE'S CHALLENGE TO
CRITICISM

THE remarks which follow will be confined to the first
division only of the Bishop of Oxford's open letter to his
Clergy — the division which deals with Criticism. With
his third division I am much inclined to agree ; with the
second, I can understand and respect where I do not
agree ; but with the first I am afraid that I strongly and
seriously disagree.

I certainly would not deprecate the main object of the
letter — its incitement to clear thinking on first principles.
I do very much deprecate the conclusions that the Bishop V
draws from his own particular application of what he /
conceives to be such principles. I believe that in this,
as well as in other matters, he shows sometimes too great
readiness to lay blame on his fellow clergy and fellow
Christians, though I note with pleasure that the later
sections are more tempered and conciliatory in expression.
But, apart from these reservations, I do not in general
disapprove of the advice that we should set ourselves to
think on large questions rather than on small ones, and
especially on those that are most fundamental.

But the Bishop's letter goes some way beyond these
general exhortations. It directly impugns the sincerity of
a number of persons who are allowed to be good men (The
Basis, &c., p. 25), and it goes on to make the somewhat
drastic proposal that the Bishops should publish a solemn
declaration expressly discountenancing the claim to free
dom which these persons have put forward.

I am glad to see it stated that the past experience of the

6 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

Bishops is against such declarations (op. cit., p. 26). I feel
sure that their disinclination to have recourse to them is
wise ; and I believe that in this instance it would be
especially wise. It is only too easy, in trying to escape
Scylla, to fall into Charybdis. It would be a dear price to
pay forj some restriction of clerical freedom, if the result
were to make the ministry of the Church of England
impossible for many thinking and instructed men.

It is characteristic of the Bishop's courage that he
gives little thought to consequences. What little he does
give is quite optimistic (op. cit. p. 26) ; he thinks that
such a declaration would only tend to produce * a whole
some and necessary crisis ' — that a certain amount of
blood-letting will do no harm. I can quite believe that
the Bishop did not really intend all that the open letter
seems to say. He must have considered that there are
different kinds of sincerity, which on the surface at
least may need some adjusting to each other. I shall
try to show that even the particular kind on which he
insists does not suffer. But in any case it stands rather
low in the scale as compared with other kinds. It may so
easily proceed from nothing more than a passive and
unthinking acquiescence in what has been handed down.
It is more an act of the will than an act of the mind ;
it may mean the suppressing of the intellectual conscience.
On the other hand, the resolute pursuit of truth requires
a high and austere sincerity ; and this, I should have
thought, is conspicuously displayed by those whom the
Bishop condemns.

This brings me to the main points in this reply. I am
prepared to maintain :

(1) that the charge of insincerity wholly breaks down ;

(2) that the reserves by which the Bishop seeks to
vindicate his own case also break down.

(3) I shall attempt to define more exactly than the
Bishop has done the true nature of the critical propositions
to which he takes exception.

A Reply 7

(4) I shall try to meet a demand which may rightly be
made of me, that I should state as frankly as I can my own
position and attitude in the matter and explain the steps
by which I have arrived at it.

I cannot think that the Bishop of Oxford has at all
thought out the question of the relation of the clergy
to the Creeds. He lays especial stress on the fact that
the Creeds are recited, and recited in the first person
singular, as proving that a stricter degree of correspon
dence is to be expected in regard to them than to any
other standard of belief. He does not say so in so many
words, and I am not quite sure what is his opinion, but
he sometimes writes as if he believed — and there are
undoubtedly some people who believe — that a Christian
takes his views on authority directly from the Creeds.
If that were so, then no doubt form and substance would
exactly coincide. Then no doubt we should have either
to take the Creeds or to leave them precisely as they
stand. There would be no room for anything of the
nature of corrected interpretation. But as a matter of
fact few persons regard the Creeds as in this sense ultimate.
They are summaries of Scripture which derive their
authority in the last resort from Scripture. And, if the
receiving mind is to retain its independence and the
value of intelligent acceptance, it must contribute some
power of apprehension of its own. It must be active,
and not merely passive ; it must assimilate at first
hand what is offered to it.

That the Creeds, as used in worship, begin with ' I be
lieve ', rather than ' We believe ', is little more than an
accident. It is well known that the two forms are
characteristic of the difference from the first between
Western Creeds and Eastern. The singular form arose
from the primitive use of the Creed at baptisms, where
it was a test rather than an "act of worship. But in its

8 Bishop Gores Challeiige to Criticism

present-day use (except at baptisms) it is altogether an
act of worship, and an act of corporate worship. When
the minister leads in the recitation of the Creed, he does
so in the name of, and as the representative of, the con
gregation. The act as a whole is a corporate act, which
must be broad and comprehensive, and cannot be made
to serve at the same time as a minute criterion of the
faith of individuals.

The Bishop of Oxford refers to some of the arguments
which are commonly employed in support of the view
that certain items in the Creed or Creeds are to be taken
in a sense that may be described as symbolical and not
literal. It is true that these arguments are for the most
part only ad hominem. They turn upon the construction
which is to be put upon the animus imponentis. And here
I must observe in passing that the Bishop does not really
weaken the argument from the sense which is put upon
the condemnatory clauses of the Quicumque vult. The
fact that he and others are agitating for * some change in
the public recitation ' of these clauses, does not do away
with the other fact, that for a full generation at least they
have been generally understood throughout the Church in
a sense which is admittedly not that of the original.

I should not wish to lay too much stress upon this,
because arguments that are only ad hominem are not
a very exalted line to take. But the Bishop omits entirely
the one argument that seems to me to be really decisive.
That is the argument from the difference of times. Creeds
composed fifteen, sixteen, seventeen centuries ago cannot
possibly express with literal exactitude the mind of to-day.
And conversely, the mind of to-day cannot possibly
correspond with literal exactitude to the wording of the
Creeds. Its whole intellectual context is different ; and
in the process of translating from the one context into
the other differences must come in. There must be an
element of what may be called mutatis mutandis.
: There cannot easily be a better example of this than

A Reply 9

the growth in modern times of the special science with
which we are concerned, the science of criticism. Whether
we like it or not, criticism has put its stamp upon the
modern mind. All non-biblical history, all non-biblical
narratives, are subject to criticism. Every schoolboy,
every student, is trained to approach them in a critical
spirit. The views universally held of the history of
Greece and Rome, of Babylonia and Egypt, are critical
views. It is impossible that our minds should be full of
these without any extension of their influence to our
manner of conceiving of the Bible. As a matter of fact,
our conception of the Bible has been deeply affected.
The Bishop of Oxford admits this as much as scholars
in general. It could not be otherwise. But if our con
ception of the Bible is thus profoundly affected, our
conception of the Creeds must be affected equally. The
critical interpretation which holds good for the Bible
must hold good also for the Creeds.

It follows that, in appropriating to our own day the
language of the Creeds, we must do it through a more or
less critical medium. This is not matter of opinion, but
matter of fact. If we are honest with ourselves, we
must accept it as such. We are therefore obliged, volentes
nolentes, to take the Creeds in a broad general sense as
subject to criticism. And in this there is no loss to
religion, because a broad general sense is just what is
best suited to be the living foundation of religious life
and religious devotion.

The central truth which it is most important to guaran
tee is the true Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ;
that our Lord Jesus Christ is truly God and truly Lord,
very God and at the same time very Man. I imagine
that if we were to cross-question ourselves as to what we
mean when we recite the Creeds, it would be something
like that in its simplest terms. That is what we are all,
educated and uneducated, trying to say, and what we
each believe the other to be trying to say. We should

A3

10 Bishop Gore's Challenge to Criticism

all agree that anything really less than this would be
hypocritical. The man who in his heart of hearts really
believed less ought not to stay where he is.

But in that great central truth all lesser truths are
absorbed. In the act of worship we could not stay, if
we would, to analyse and discriminate and determine
what is the exact modern equivalent for the ancient faith.
I will try in a moment, under the next head but one, to
define more nearly what changes we have to allow for.
But J should quite consent to lay it down as a condition
that the total force of the central truth must not be
impaired.

I distinctly recognize that a line has to be drawn.
I distinctly recognize that it is the duty of the bishops
to act as guardians of the common faith and to see that
individuals do not diverge from it too widely. And I am
sure that in practice the Bishops generally can be trusted
to exercise this duty with all possible wisdom and con
sideration.

II

But the Bishop of Oxford is not content with a broad
general acceptance of the substance of the Creed, however
genuine and heartfelt. He would require its application
in minute detail ; and when he is confronted with the
difficulties arising from modern ways of looking at the
ancient facts, he seeks to over-ride these and to maintain
the old strict conditions by drawing a twofold distinction :
(i) between the Old Testament and the New, and (ii)
between certain clauses in the Creeds and other clauses —
he allows the presence of a larger symbolical element in
the first class than in the second. These distinctions we
must now proceed to test.

(i) I must pay a tribute to the breadth and candour
of what is said about the Old Testament.

' I seemed to myself to see quite clearly, and still
seem to myself to see quite clearly, the broad difference

A Reply 11

between the Old Testament as prophecy and the New
Testament as fulfilment in fact. I seemed to see quite
clearly then that 'the preparatory revelation can be
given as well in myth and legend and poetry and quasi-
philosophical inquiry and moral tale, as in the simple
record of historical fact. I do not wish to define, or
ask any one else to define, where history passes back
into legend or myth. They are all alike capable of
being used as instruments of divine revelation or the
inspiration of the Spirit of God — just as poetry or
allegory is. And it is in this sense that I do unfeignedly
believe, and desire that we clergy should profess our
unfeigned belief, in all the Canonical Scriptures — not
because I believe the Book of Jonah to be history
rather than allegory, but because I believe that the
Book of Jonah and each one of the canonical writings
conveys, with some distinctiveness of special function,
the word of God, which was spoken in many manners,
through divers really inspired men who were God's
instruments for His self-disclosure under the old cove
nant ' (op. cit., pp. 18, 19).

I would endorse every word of this after the first sen
tence. It expresses exactly what I hold, and stfongly
hold, myself. The point that I should wish to see stated
more fully and explicitly is the initial affirmation of the
difference between the Old Testament and the New.
It will hardly be contended that the generally prophetic
character of the Old Testament and the general promi
nence of fulfilment in the New Testament establishes any
fundamental difference between them, so that different
methods and a different measure should be applied to each.
There is another passage to a similar effect.

' It is quite true that I have always been jealous on
behalf of the freedom of literary and historical criticism,
strictly so called, in its application to the Bible, both
the Old and the New Testament. There is a criticism,
falsely so called, which is bound by its presuppositions
to explain away anything miraculous in the Bible.
This sort of criticism is no doubt destructive. But
there is a criticism which is really open-minded and

12 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

really historical. It has largely reconstructed for us
our ideas of the literature of the Old Testament and
thrown a vast amount of valuable light upon the New
Testament. It has, I think, shown us that there is
one pseudonymous book in the New Testament, the
" Second Epistle of S. Peter ", and that there are
discrepancies and errors of detail in the narratives of
the New Testament, but it has not weakened our right
to regard the New Testament narratives as strictly
trustworthy historical narratives, and it has shed a
vast amount of light and confirmation upon them.
It has shown us, I think, that a great part of the
historical narratives of the Old Testament is not strict
history, but gives us what S. Gregory of Nyssa admir
ably calls " ideas in the form of a narrative ", and, in
my judgement, it has made the Old Testament incom
parably better suited for spiritual edification. The
writers of the early Church, and not only the Alexan
drians, were fully alive to the " allegorical " character
of the early narratives of Genesis, and I have always
contended that we are entitled to apply a similar
principle to-day, and to recognize that myth and
legend and story have been instruments in the divine
education of man, as well as strict history. Where the
element of fact becomes of supreme significance, in the
region of the Incarnation, there also the historical
evidence is adequate and, to my mind, convincing '
(op. cit., pp. 21, 22).

This passage is one of the indications which raise my
doubts as to the real flexibility and freedom from bias
of the Bishop's historical criticism. The wholesale and
over-emphatic references to the conclusiveness of the
evidence are not promising to the eye of a scholar. The
wish is too evidently father to the thought. If the
Bishop brought the same clear-sightedness to bear upon
the study of the New Testament that he has brought to
bear on that of the Old, I submit that various expressions
would have been considerably chastened. I may have
occasion to come back to some points of detail presently.

One of the determining stages in the history of my own
thought has been the gradually growing conviction that

A Reply 13

it is impossible to draw any clear line of demarcation
between the New Testament and the Old ; nay, that the
New Testament must be even more liable to the same
kind of influences as the Old, because, whereas the Old
Testament writers shaped their own methods of writing
history for themselves, the New Testament writers
followed throughout the model of the Old Testament ;
their minds were full of the Old Testament narratives,
and there was a natural tendency to assimilate their own
narratives to them. I may have to give some illustration
of this tendency later. Even St. Luke, whose preface
breathes the spirit of a sober secular historian, is entirely
at one with his fellows in regard to Miracle.

(ii) The other distinction that is drawn is between
different clauses in the Creeds. This is the subject of
an article of some eighteen pages which Dr. Gore has
contributed to the current number of The Constructive
Quarterly (March 1914). For our purpose, however, the
more summary statement in the pamphlet will be suf
ficient. It is in reply to a defence which is put forward
on the other side.

' But, once more, it is said, even in the creed, you
admit that statements of fact are in part symbolical.
You must admit that, when you say " He descended
into hell ", unless you believe that the dead are confined
in a hollow place under the ground, you are using
symbolical language about an historical event. So
when you say " He ascended into heaven, and sitteth
on the right hand of God ", unless you believe that
heaven is over our heads, and God the Father has there
a throne where the Son literally sits on His right hand
[sic, I am not sure that there is not an apodosis missing].
. . . Human language is practically limited by what
has fallen within present human experience. With
regard, therefore, to what lies outside present human
experience, we can only be taught, or formulate our
beliefs, in symbolical language — language which is in a
measure diverted from its original purpose . This is what
S. Paul means when he says " We see through a glass,

14 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

darkly", that is a blurred reflection of truth, as in
a mental mirror, or as conveyed in a symbolic story.
So it is about the being of God, or about the beginnings
or endings of things (" Genesis " and " Apocalypse "), or
about heaven and hell. When I say Christ ascended
into heaven, I am first of all referring to a certain
symbolical but actual and historical demonstration
which our Lord gave to His disciples forty days after
His resurrection. But when I say "He descended into
hell", and also when in a more general sense I say
" He ascended into heaven, and sitteth, &c.", I confess
to the use of metaphor in an historical statement,
because the historical statement carries me outside
the world of present possible experience, and symbolical
language is the only language that I can use ' (pp. 19, 20).

A crucial instance for our purpose is precisely that
which the Bishop has given, ' He ascended into heaven r
and sitteth on the right hand of God.' It is agreed
between us that ' sitteth on the right hand of God ' is
pure symbolism. But then the Bishop maintains that the
first half of the clause is not pure, but what might perhaps
be called ' mixed ', symbolism. He is even more explicit
in the article than in the pamphlet.

1 So far as the first part of this clause is concerned
it must be understood to refer to an historical incident,
viz. that the body of Jesus Christ, forty days after His
resurrection, rose before His disciples' eyes upwards
from the earth and vanished. This fact, which we
accept as a fact, if we believe that St. Luke grounded
his narrative on good testimony, is quite of a piece with
other recorded appearances' (Constructive Quarterly,
p. 61).

Bishop Chase writes to the same effect (The Gospels in
the Light of Historical Criticism, p. xxx) :

' Those who accept, as I accept, St. Luke's account
of the Ascension interpret it as a revelation wrought
out in action for the sake of the disciples.'

He goes on to quote Bishop Westcott :

1 The physical elevation was a speaking parable, an
eloquent symbol, but not the Truth to which it pointed

A Reply 15

or the reality which it foreshadowed. The change
which Christ revealed by the Ascension was not a change
of place, but a change of state, not local but spiritual.
Still, from the necessities of our human condition the
spiritual change was represented sacramentally, so to
speak, in an outward form.'

What I would contend for, in opposition to all this
triad of writers, is that the account of the Ascension is
just as much pure symbolism as that of the Session.
Bishop Westcott hit the mark exactly when he said that
' the change which Christ revealed by the Ascension was
not a change of place, but a change of state, not local
but spiritual '. But he need not have added the sentence
which follows about representation in outward form.
I do not think that the evidence is sufficient to convince
us that ' the physical elevation ' of the Lord's body really
happened as an external, objective fact. However, this
raises the whole question as to the nature of Miracle, to
which I shall have to come back very soon. I have no
difficulty in believing that the early Christians, with the
assumptions of Enoch and Elijah as fixed points in their
minds, quickly came to believe that a like event must
have happened to our Lord. I am becoming more and
more inclined to think that we are apt to exaggerate the
length of time which is required for the growth of such
stories, where the moulds in which they are to be thrown
are the common property of a whole community.

For these reasons I cannot accept the distinction drawn
by Dr. Gore, that events of which the current accounts
involve an appeal to the senses are necessarily to be
taken as literally true, while those which do not involve
such an appeal may be explained as symbolical.

Another argument which the Bishop presses is an appeal
to the nature of the Incarnation. Because the Incarnation
enhanced the dignity of the body and of all that goes
with the body, therefore there is a presumption that in
cases where a choice may be made between two repre-

16 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

sentations of an event one of which is bodily and the
other purely spiritual, the bodily version is to be pre
ferred. This, as I understand it, is the argument ; if I am
wrong, I shall perhaps be corrected. If this is the argu
ment, I think it must be seen how little weight it carries
with it. It does not follow that, because the Incarnation
was bodily, therefore every act or process, or even
a majority of the acts and processes connected with the
Incarnation, must also have been bodily. When once we
begin to doubt statements which involve a real contra
vention of the laws of nature, there is many a spiritual
version of an event which becomes much easier to accept
than the corresponding physical version. For instance,
it is easier to suppose that the withering of the Fig Tree
was parable rather than literal fact.

In face of these considerations I must needs think that
the defensive position which it is sought to construct
really breaks down. The distinctions on which it turns
seem to me quite untenable. They are invented ad hoc,
to save the common literal interpretation of points in
the Gospel history, and have the artificial character of
all such inventions.

Ill

But if this is the case ; if these temporary and
precarious expedients do, as I believe, break down ; if
there is no tenable halting-place short of the conclusions
which the Bishop of Oxford has set himself to impugn, it
becomes highly important that the conclusions themselves
should be stated with all possible accuracy and strictly
within the limits which they claim for themselves.

I know the extreme difficulty of obtaining this. The
man in the street is impatient of what he considers wire
drawn distinctions. Among the clergy there are many —
especially among those who are so ready to sign memorials
— who, partly from the good motives of loyalty and a wish
to demonstrate in favour of their beliefs but partly also

A Reply 17

from defective training, fail to appreciate the niceties of
restrictions and qualifications. There are some, even
among high-placed statesmen and scholars — and I must
needs think that the Bishop of Oxford belongs to this class
— who from natural habit and idiosyncrasy instinctively
adopt the bolder expression and instinctively drop out of
sight the limitations by which it is guarded. These causes
are constantly feeding the fallacy a dicto secundum quid
ad dictum simpliciter, and constantly leading to uncon
scious misrepresentation. I know that to the end of the
chapter it will be said, that miracles are denied, that
nature -miracles are denied, that the Virgin Birth is
denied, that the Resurrection is denied, that our Lord's
infallibility is denied. It would not be candid of me if
I were to pretend that there is not a foundation of truth —
and in one instance a considerable foundation of literal
(but I would submit, only literal) truth — in each of these
charges. But in every single case there is some important
limitation or qualification which ought to be borne in
mind whenever the charge is repeated. To omit this is
always to import an element of injustice. Statements
respecting others, and especially statements respecting
the beliefs of others, should always be reproduced in the
same meaning and with the same balance of context with
which they were originally made.

Notwithstanding this inevitable and perpetual liability
to misrepresentation, I will try at least once to reduce
the indictment which is brought against us to its proper
dimensions. I say ' brought against us ', because I must
begin by associating myself more definitely than I have
hitherto done with the group of writers whom the Bishop
has in his mind. It is only within the last two years—
or rather through a process of thought spread over the
last two years — that I have been led to go, or come to
feel inclined to go, as far as some of them do. I am not
sure that I still go quite as far. I ought perhaps to add
that, if I know myself, I should say that the advance has

18 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

been mainly due to the development of my own thought,
though it would be unfair not to admit that I may have
been subconsciously influenced by younger writers like
Professor Lake and Mr. J. M. Thompson. I have argued
against them, and I found, and still find, not a little to
criticize, especially in the attitude of Mr. Thompson. But
still ' the dart sticks in the side ' ; and, when one has
done arguing, one may still ask whether one has done full
justice to all the facts under review. In regard to my
brother professor on the foundation of the Lady Mar
garet at Cambridge, I had no idea, until I received his
pamphlet, that he held the views he does.

The four counts with which I will attempt to deal are
just thosl^wTScfTare mentioned by the Bishop of Oxford —
the ' nature -miracles ', the Birth of our Lord, His bodily
Resurrection, and the reluctance to use in connexion with
Him the term ' infallibility '. The wider question of
Miracles will come more appropriately into the next
section.

I will try to say how much of truth there is in each of
these counts. I will begin with the last.

The word ' infallibility ' is one that, if I could, I
should like to banish from theology altogether. I asso
ciate the use of it, as a rule, with complete insensibility
to evidence. In most of the connexions in which it is
applied it is a pure figment. The one connexion in which
I could perhaps consent to use it is in regard to our Lord,
But, even in this connexion, I should consider that the
word was liable to mislead and that it would be better
avoided. ' Infallibility ' would be more appropriately
used of absolute knowledge than of relative. But few
things are more certain than that, by some process of
Kenosis — or whatever it may be called — the knowledge
that our Lord assumed would be better described as rela
tive than as absolute . The exactly true proposition would,
I think, be something of this kind : that whatever our
Lord either thought or said or did was strictly in accord-

A Reply 19

ance with the will of the Father. It is part of the will
of the Father that every age should have its own appro
priate range of knowledge. Our Lord assumed the
particular range appropriate to the age in which He lived.
I would not say that He never went beyond this. He
did go beyond it. But that was the exception and not
the rule. And, when He went beyond it, it was in con
nexion with the special purpose or circumstances of
His mission, and not with reference to things in general.
He does show a perfect knowledge of the mind and
will of the Father ; but even here He expressly states
that there are some things which the Father has reserved
to Himself (St. Mark xiii. 32 ; Acts i. 7). A statement of
this kind would have the advantage of being at once
strictly orthodox and scrupulously true.

In regard to the ' nature-miracles ', I think that, of the
two hypotheses — that*flBfflllwere performed by our Lord
exactly as they are described, and that they came to be
attributed to Him in this form by the imagination of the
Early Church — the latter is the more probable. I believe
that, in most of these cases something happened which
gave rise to the story, but that the most difficult element
in it was probably due to an extension of the original fact,
rather than itself original. I will expound this more
fully in the next section.

In regard to the Birth of our Lord, I would say that
I believe most emphatically in His Supernatural Birth ;
but I cannot so easily bring myself to think that His
Birth was (as I should regard it) unnatural. This is just
a case where I think that the Gospels use symbolical
language. I can endorse entirely the substantial meaning
of that verse of St. Luke (i. 35) : ' The Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall
overshadow thee : wherefore also that which is to be born
shall be called holy, the Son of God.' This is deeply
metaphorical and symbolical, and carries us into regions
where thought is baffled. I do not doubt that the Birth

20 Bishop Gore's Challenge to Criticism

of our Lord was sanctified in every physical respect in
the most perfect manner conceivable. The coming of
the Only-begotten into the world could not but be at
tended by every circumstance of holiness. Whatever the
Virgin Birth can spiritually mean for us is guaranteed
by the fact that the Holy Babe was Divine. Is it not
enough to affirm this with all our heart and soul, and be
silent as to anything beyond ?

In like manner as to the Resurrection. The only
question really at issue relates t*oliff"Hktail, the actual
resuscitation of the dead body of the Lord from the tomb.
The accounts that have come down to us seem to be too
conflicting and confused to prove this. But they do
seem to prove that in any case the detail is of less impor
tance than is supposed. Because, whatever it was, the
body which the disciples saw was not the natural human
body that was laid in the grave. A natural 'human body
does not pass through closed doors. Its identity would
not escape recognition by intimate friends, either for
a shorter time (as by Mary Magdalen) or for a longer time
(as by the disciples on the way to Emmaus). No coherent
and consistent view can be worked out as to the nature
of the Risen Body. Various ideas were current at the
time as to the manner and process of resurrection ; and
this variety of ideas is reflected in the accounts that
have come down to us. The central meaning of the
Resurrection is just that expressed in the vision of the
Apocalypse : ' I am the first and the last, and the Living
one ; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore '
(Rev. i. 18). Is it not enough for us that the first disciples
were convinced of this by signs which they could under
stand, by signs appropriate to the world of ideas in which
they moved ? So much is quite certain ; and so much
agrees perfectly with the whole sequel of events which
follow. That the Risen Lord as Spirit still governed and
inspired His Church is proved beyond question, if by
nothing else, by the first-hand testimony of St. Paul — not

A Reply 21

only by his own experience, but by the experience of the
Christian Church around him. All this, I repeat, is
verifiable history. But we may go on disputing for ever
as to the exact mode in which the Resurrection of our
Lord was accomplished, as we shall never know the exact
manner of our own resurrection.

My own advice, so far as I may presume to give it,
would be that we should abstain from logomachies, that
we should not attempt to draw precarious inferences
ourselves and still less force upon others inferences which
they do not draw, but concentrate our strength on what is
vital and verifiable.

IV

My hands have been forced by the acute crisis raised
by Bishop Gore. I have for some time felt myself gravi
tating towards the conclusions to which I have given
expression. I was bound to make them public sooner or
later ; but I should have been glad if it could have been
later rather than sooner. The main lines have been
becoming more and more clear to me ; but I do not
consider that I have worked them out fully from all sides.
Only the fact that Bishop Gore seeks to preclude the very
conclusions to which I feel myself coming, only his
sweeping condemnation of just those workers with whom
I am most in sympathy, has compelled me to anticipate
the moment that I should naturally have chosen and to
lay before the world, or so much of the world as may be
interested, the line of thought by which my mind has
been travelling. I feel that I must now do this.

The particular results that I have mentioned are all
parts or incidents in a comprehensive inquiry into the
general subject of Miracles and the Supernatural. All
my career has really been leading up to this subject ;
but I made up my mind from the first to approach it in
a deliberate and gradual way. I thought that I would

22 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

not attack the central problem first, but last. Whatever
might be the best method for others, I had little doubt
that this was the best for me.

I began at the foot of the ladder. I first sought to
make myself at home in the field of the Lower Criticism,
and then to rise to the Higher. I thought that the first
thing we wanted was accurate texts, and then to assign
these texts to their proper surroundings in place and time.
This was preliminary to the construction of an historical
background. But everything that could be regarded as
a priori or philosophical I was content to leave in suspense.

Thus, in the article ' Jesus Christ ' in Hastings, Dic
tionary of the Bible, vol. ii (reprinted as Outlines of the
Life of Christ in 1905), I confined myself to the positive
statement of the evidence for the Gospel Miracles. This
attitude was preserved in The Criticism of the Fourth
Gospel, also published in 1905. The first at all systematic
survey of the subject is in The Life of Christ in Eecent
Research (Oxford, 1907). This really contains all the
guiding ideas that I have ever had on the subject, though
at an early stage and not yet bound together in a construc
tive theory. My chief interest was still historical and
evidential, but I tried to embrace a general view of the
idea of Miracle, in profane history, in the Old Testament
and in the New. It could not be said of me that my
attitude was based ' on a mistaken view of natural law,
and on something much less than a Christian belief in
God ' (op. cit.y p. 9). At least, I was not disposed to put
any limit to the Divine power or to ascribe any necessity
to natural law as such. I did not for a moment doubt the
power of God to make what exceptions He pleased. - I
only asked for better evidence of His will to make them.
And much seemed to turn on the nature of the exceptions.
I was perfectly ready to accept and believe whatever
could be explained by the operation of a higher cause in
the course of nature. But as we see the Divine Providence
in action, the higher cause never contradicts the lower.

A Reply 23

It overrules it and diverts it from its original direction,
but it never breaks the proper sequence of cause and
effect. This is not only our own experience from day
to day and from hour to hour ; it is overwhelmingly con
firmed by the experience of all the centuries since the
growth of natural science. The question was whether
the same principle held good in remoter ages. There
was a certain amount of ostensible evidence against the
presumption that it did. But in the light of historical
criticism this evidence seemed little by little to fall to
pieces. It was first given up over the whole field of pro
fane history. There is a strong feeling that it has also
given way for the Old Testament, There was abundant
evidence for the operation of higher spiritual causes ; but
when it came to a breach of the physical order, the evi
dence was always found to be insufficient. The evidence
itself could be accounted for without assuming that the
breach was real, An excellent description of the state
of things for the Old Testament is that which is given by
the Bishop of Oxford in the paragraph quoted above
(p. 11). It is not likely that the general public should
quite understand the real situation : it is no longer the
Bible over against all other literature and history ; but,
the miracles of the New Testament — or rather, one small
group of these miracles — stand virtually alone.

By degrees there had hardened in my mind a .distinction
which is perhaps most conveniently expressed as a dis
tinction between events that are supra naturam — excep
tional, extraordinary, testifying to the presence of higher
spiritual forces — and events, or alleged events, that are
contra naturam, or involve some definite reversal of the
natural physical order.

If it is urged that this is reading back modern ideas
into the distant past, I reply that that is undoubtedly
true, but that we do so in regard to other departments
of history, and that the process is in fact unavoidable.
We are obliged to go back behind the narratives that

24 Bishop Gore's Challenge to Criticism

have come down to us and to apply to them the standards
of our own age, which in the treatment of evidence are
more exacting.

The problem is greatly simplified when once the distinc
tion just drawn is applied as a criterion to miracles. There
were broad tracts of miracles over which the evidence was
really decisive. For instance, wherever we have the
direct evidence of Sk Paul that evidence is immediate
and cannot be questioned. But then, when we came to
look into it, these miracles were at once seen to come
under the head supra naturam. They were abundantly
accounted for by the presence in the world of a unique
Personality, and by that wave of new spiritual force
which flowed from it in ever-increasing volume. They
involved no real breach in the order of nature. It was
only that tiny group of miracles that I have described
as contra naturam that did imply any such breach. By
the observance of this distinction the subject was greatly
narrowed down.

I had come to see as much as this when it fell to me
to read a paper on Miracles at the Church Congress at
Middlesbrough in 1912. After the Congress the progress
of my thought was rapid. I soon realized that it was
once more a question of the balance of evidence ; but this
time the balance seemed to be more and more over
whelming. If we isolate the group of miracles that are
really contra naturam, it is found to be exceedingly small.
It is just that group which the Bishop of Oxford accuses
his opponents of denying, but in regard to which we have
seen (pp. 18-21 supra) that the denial is ^ jery^qualified
and limited. In each case a large elemenTof substantial
truth remains.

Isolating this group of contra naturam miracles, what
is the nature of the evidence for it ? It is the evidence
of men whose minds were steeped in the Old Testament ;
for whom the Old Testament was the standing model ;
whose thoughts naturally ran into the moulds which the

A Reply 25

Old Testament supplied. It seems to me that this one
consideration is enough to explain all the so-called ' nature-
miracles '.

By far the most important of these is the Feeding of
the Five Thousand. I quite agree that the evidence for
this miracle is peculiarly strong. The presence of two ver
sions of the same miracle; with so little deviation, in the
Gospel of St. Mark proves that it took hold very early.
But what does the proof really amount to ? I do not
doubt for a moment that the story represents a real event.
This real event was in any case a consecrated meal.
I must not stay to discuss the subject at length ; but
I believe there is reason to think that such meals played
a larger part in the intercourse of our Lord with His
disciples than the narratives that have come down to us
would lead us to suppose. I suspect that in this way the
Last Supper was led up to ; it was not only a last supper
but a last eucharist ; it was a last dominical eucharist
as well as the institution of a eucharist for the Church of
all time. The phrase ' He was known of them in break
ing of the bread ' (St. Luke xxiv. 35) suggests that such
solemn ' breakings of bread ' had happened before. I can
well believe that on one (or more) of these occasions the
consecrated meal was accompanied by a discourse which
supplied the foundation for that of which we have a
record in St. John vi.

The story is thus full of genuine historical matter.
I believe, with Schweitzer, that the substance of it is
all historical, except the one phrase 'and they were all
filled ' (with the details which go with it). This preter
natural filling is the only addition. Where does it come
from ? I have little doubt that it comes from the stories
of multiplied food in the Old Testament narratives of
Elijah and Elisha, and especially from the story of the
man of Baal-shalishah in 2 Kings iv. 42-4. It is worth
while to remind ourselves that these narratives of Elijah
and Elisha, though they contain some very doubtful

26 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

stories of miracle, contain also a number of magnificent
spiritual lessons (1 Kings xviii. 15, 21 ; xix. 11-14 ;
xx. 11, 13 ; xxi. 17-21, 27-9 ; xxii. 14-28, &c., &c.).
The other nature-miracles are still easier.

There remain, then, in this category of contra naturam
miracles only the two great events, the Supernatural
Beginning and the Supernatural Ending of the Lord's
earthly career. It was precisely in this order that I came
to consider them, at the end of a long train of reasoning
in regard to Miracles and the Supernatural in general.
This was the point that I had reached. The whole class of
supra naturam miracles was in principle secured. It
would be only human if the records that have come down
to us presented some exaggerations in detail. But these
can be easily allowed for. The occurrence of not a few—
if we take both the Life of our Lord and the Apostolic
Age together I would say, of very many — miracles of this
kind is, I think, conclusively proved. Not so with the
group that I call contra naturam. I have said that in the
New Testament this group is really small. The concep
tion of such miracles took its rise in the region of the
Old Testament. If we think a moment, it was inevitable
that such a conception should arise in a primitive age.
Take one little incident in illustration. It is a well-
known fact that, owing to the strong specific gravity of
its waters, things will float in the Dead Sea that will not
float elsewhere. I do not know whether iron is one of
these things ; but at all events something like iron may
have been seen to float in these waters that would have
sunk in others. That would be at once regarded as
a miracle, and would easily give rise to such a story as
that of 2 Kings vi. 1-7. There could not well be a better
example of St. Augustine's Omnia quippe portenta contra
naturam dicimus esse ; sed non sunt. . . . Portentum ergo
fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura
(de Civ. Dei, xxi. 8). I do not say that St. Augustine
meant exactly what we may mean in applying his words ;

A Reply 27

but at least he may suggest our meaning. I must not
stay to enlarge on this any more than on other details
that have come before us. But I think we can see the
genesis of this class of miracle^. They took their rise in
the Old Testament period. They thus became a fixed
type, which perpetuated itself in the New Testament.
There is nothing in this, paradoxical as it may seem,
that is not entirely in accordance with God's way of
dealing with men. His ways are not as our ways, and His
thoughts are not as our thoughts. We should not, ante
cedently, expect Him to bring truth out of legend ;' but,
as a matter of fact, He has most certainly done so. The
course of history proves that certain modes of expression
that have prevailed over long periods were not intended
to be permanent. It is not right that they should be
denied or described as untrue. The language of the past
has had all through, and still has, a relative justification ;
I would blame no one who still thinks that he ought to
use it. It is not so much negatived as superseded.

These considerations may help to prepare us for coming
back to the question, which I know is a very tender one,
as to the two cardinal events, the Supernatural Birth
and the Supernatural Resurrection. I may be permitted
to remind my readers how I came myself to raise and to
face this question. It was only at the end of a long
inquiry into matters of less urgent moment. But it was
quite impossible for me to stop there. And it was quite
impossible for me to dismiss from my mind the prae-
judicium which had been gradually forming itself against
the permanent validity of the conception of miracles
contra naturam.

But, after all, the contra naturam element was only
a part — and I may be permitted to say, a small part — of
these great events. It is from our modern standpoint
that it becomes a small part. In ancient times it seemed
necessary to the completeness of the idea, but it is so no
longer. The element that we seem likely to lose has done

28 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

its work and can be spared. It is like a lame man laying
aside his crutches.

Two things I would ask leave to do. I would ask leave
to affirm once more my entire and strong belief in the
central reality of the Supernatural Birth and the Super
natural Resurrection. No one believes in these things
more strongly than I at least wish to believe in them.

But also, at the cost of repetition, I must ask to be
allowed to say again what I have said already. My excuse
is that I know it is hopeless to escape a certain measure
of misrepresentation. I shall not complain of those who
misrepresent me ; because I have already appealed to
a Higher Power. But I must in candour add that,
although I believe emphatically in a Supernatural Birth
and a Supernatural Resurrection, and in all that follows
from these beliefs, I know that is not all that the Church
of the past has believed. I must not blink this fact.
I hope that I believe all that the Church's faith has stood
for ; but I could not, as at present advised, commit
myself to it as literal fact.

There is one other point to which I must go back for a
moment. Bishop Gore wrote that ' the rejection of the
nature-miracles . . . cuts so deep into the historical
character of the Gospel narrative, the record of the words
as well as the works of our Lord, that nothing like the dis
tinctive confidence of the Christian creed could be main
tained ' (op. cit., p. 10). I hope that, if what I have said has
been attentively and charitably followed, it will be seen
that I at least do not share in this opinion. The Bishop
and his more immediate following may think that the
points of difference between us are so important that the
words just quoted cover my position as well as that of
others. But when once a critical view of the Gospel
history has been adopted, I think it will be seen that
such a reconstruction as I propose involves a minimum
of change and abruptness of transition. It happens that
at the time when the Bishop's pamphlet appeared I was

A Reply 29

actually planning an essay the object of which would be
to show that some of the leading German scholars have,
as I believe through a mistake of method, fallen into
a treatment of the Gospels that is more negative than
it ought to be. I believe that (in spite of the conces
sions I have made above) ' in a fair field and with
no favour ' the broad lines of the Gospel tradition and
the broad lines of the Christian faith verify and establish
themselves.

The mention of the Germans leads me to the further
remark that Bishop Gore has either forgotten or delibe
rately taken no account of them. It is surely a fact of
some significance that the Protestant scholars of the
foremost nation of the world for penetrating thoughtful-
ness, thoroughness, and technical knowledge, have
arrived with a considerable degree of unanimity just at
the kind of conclusions which the Bishop condemns.
Yet Germany has been at work on these problems for
more than a century past like a hive of bees. Those who
care to see what one of the best and most cautious of the
Germans thinks about them may see it in the little
volume of lectures delivered at Oberlin College, Ohio, by
Dr. Friedrich Loofs, Professor of Church History at Halle
(What is the Truth about Jesus Christ ? Scribner's, 1913).

I have not myself any fault to find with the German
attitude, unless it is that it is rather too academic, and
has rather too much of the rigour of the lecture-room.
On the other hand, its great merit is that it is strictly
sachgemdss ; it does not condescend to smartness or
playing to the gallery. I would make bold to claim that
our critical English scholars of the left wing, including
especially those named by the Bishop of Oxford, are not
less deserving of the respect and gratitude of their country
men. There is nothing wanton about them, nothing super
cilious, nothing cynical ; they obey their conscience, and
go where their conscience leads them ; they are evidently,
all of them, genuinely religious men and good Christians.

30 Bishop Gores Challenge to Criticism

I would say of all but one (so far as I know) of those who
have written on these subjects that they show an anxious
desire to conserve all that can be rightly conserved of the
old beliefs. And so much at least I would claim f
myself.

If it is said that what I have written is Modernism,
I would reply that I believe — I emphatically and hope
fully believe — that a sound and right Modernism is really
possible ; — that the Saviour of mankind extends His arms
towards the cultivated modern man just as much as He
does towards the simple believer. I believe that the
cultivated modern man may enter the Church of Christ
with his head erect — with some change of language due
to difference of times, but all of the nature of reinter-
pretation of old truths, and without any real equivoca
tion at his heart. I believe that he can afford to say what
he really thinks — provided only that his fellow Christians
of more traditional types are willing to greet him with the
sympathetic intelligence which he deserves, and do not
turn towards him the cold shoulder of suspicion and
denunciation.

For the moment I know that the suggestions I have
made will come with a shock to the great mass of
Christians ; but in the end I believe that they will be
thankfully welcomed. What they would mean is that
the greatest of all stumbling-blocks to the modern mind
is removed, and that the beautiful regularity that we see
around us now has been, and will be, the law of the
Divine action from the beginning to the end of time.
There has been just this one little submerged rock in our
mental navigation of the universe. If we look at it from
a cosmical standpoint, how infinitesimal does it seem !
And yet that one little rock has been the cause of many
a shipwreck of faith. If it is really taken out of the way,
the whole expanse of the ocean of thought will be open
and free.

The ultimate goal is the unification of thought, the

A Reply 31

fusion of all secular thinking and all religious thinking
in one comprehensive and harmonious system. If I am
not mistaken such a unification is nearer in sight than it
has been for a very long time. If the concessions I have
made look like an encroachment from the secular side,
they are perhaps only part of the process of dovetailing
which precedes fusion.

I must confess that I began this pamphlet in an indig
nant mood. I have tried to remove the traces of this,
and I shall be glad if I have in some measure succeeded.
Apart from that, the process of expounding views that one
knows will excite opposition and perhaps some obloquy
can hardly help being a turbid process. As I look back
I am conscious of having passed through more than one
turbid vein both in writing and in thinking. But, as
I bring what I have written to an end, I hope that I can
do so on the noble note of Samson Agonistes,

With calm of mind, all passion spent.

For any sins of thought or of word of which I may have
been guilty, at any stage of this controversy, I humbly
ask forgiveness.

OXFORD : HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

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